Silver halide color photographic materials have a multilayer constitution comprising photosensitive layers, which are three silver halide emulsion layers selectively sensitized so as to have sensitivities to blue light, green light, and red light, and which are coated on a base. For example, in the case of so-called color photographic print papers (hereinafter referred to as color papers), a cyan color-forming emulsion layer, a magenta color-forming emulsion layer, and a yellow color-forming emulsion layer are coated, generally in the stated order with the cyan color-forming emulsion layer being nearer to the exposure side, and a color-mix-inhibiting-intermediate layer, an ultraviolet-absorbing layer, a protective layer, and the like are provided between these photosensitive layers.
In so-called color positive films, a magenta color-forming emulsion layer, a cyan color-forming emulsion layer, and a yellow color-forming emulsion layer are coated, generally in the stated order with the magenta-color forming emulsion layer being far from the base, i.e., nearer to the exposure side. In color negative films the arrangement of layers is varied, and even though a cyan color-forming emulsion layer, a magenta color-forming emulsion layer, and a yellow color-forming emulsion layer are generally coated, in the stated order with the cyan color-forming emulsion layer being nearer to the exposure side, in the case of photographic materials having two or more emulsion layers having the same color sensitivity and different in sensitivity, some photographic materials have such emulsion layers with an emulsion layer different in color sensitivity between them, wherein, for example, a bleachable yellow filter layer, an intermediate layer, and a protective layer are inserted.
In order to form a color photographic image, three color photographic couplers, i.e., yellow, magenta, and cyan photographic couplers, are contained in photosensitive layers, and the exposed photographic material is subjected to color development processing with a so-called color-developing agent. The oxidized product of an aromatic primary amine causes a coupling reaction with the couplers to form color-formed dyes, and preferably the couplers are such couplers wherein the coupling speeds are as high as possible and the color-forming property is good so as to give high color densities within a limited developing time. Further, all of the color formed dyes are required to be bright cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes with less subsidiary absorption in order to give a color photographic image good in color reproduction.
On the other hand, the formed color photographic image is required to be good in preservability under various conditions. To satisfy this requirement, it is important that fading or discoloration speed of each of the different color-formed dyes is slow and the speed of fading is uniform throughout the image density as much as possible, so that the color balance of the remaining dye image remains unchanged.
Conventionally, in photographic materials, particularly in color papers, deterioration of the yellow dye image owing to long-term dark-fading by humidity and heat is considerable, which is liable to cause a change in the color balance, and therefore an improvement is desired.
In photographic materials in which dark-fading is significantly prevented, however, conventionally color-forming property is unsatisfactory, and therefore a new combination of couplers good in color reproduction and outstanding in image preservability is desired.
To solve these problems in part, various yellow couplers, and their combinations have been suggested conventionally. Examples are described, for example, in JP-A ("JP-A" means unexamined published Japanese patent application) Nos. 20037/1982, 57236/1984, 208745/1983, 205446/1985, 117249/1985, 229029/1985, 222852/1985, 50136/1986, 160143/1984, 120147/1986, 4047/1986, 239149/1987, 240965/1987, 254149/1987, and 300748/1990, and in JP-B ("JP-B" means examined Japanese patent publication) No. 7344/1987.
However, these couplers and combinations do not bring about sufficient color-forming property of the yellow coupler, and because fading in the yellow dye section resulting from deterioration due to light or heat is considerable, a change in color balance occurs and therefore the overall problems have not yet been overcome satisfactorily.